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Biopolitics is the study of the very specific cross section where biology and politics meet. This is an incredibly niche area of study, however the presence of both biology and politics intersect much more than one would assume. This is an important field of study, as government politics directly interfere with human life. This can range from the mild to extreme. An early example of biopolitics could be the employment of eugenics, which, according to the dictionary, is the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Many governmental bodies, including the United States of America utilized eugenics programs up until the mid-twentieth century, sterilizing many ethnic minorities and people with disabilities who were considered inferior by government standards. Some countries, such as Nazi Germany, went even farther with this, executing their undesirable ethnic minorities and disabled folks. A more mild and contemporary example of biopolitics can be observed in modern day health care systems. While most first world countries in this day and age adhere to a single payer system, also known as universal healthcare, the United States of America has a private system, where health insurance coverage is determined by your job and level of income. Those who have better paying jobs or work for the government generally have access to better healthcare whereas those who work minimum wage or blue collar jobs typically have to settle for cheaper healthcare options with less coverage. This is a huge point of contention for many liberals and conservatives. Many of those on the right argue that under a private healthcare system, citizens have more choice over who is taking care of them. Those on the left side of the aisle argue that Americans pay much more to their insurance companies than they would under a single payer system, but receive worse healthcare coverage despite this. Also, there are over forty-four million Americans who do not have insurance, nearly fifteen percent of the country’s entire population. These statistics can be incredibly concerning, especially in a global pandemic situation that we are experiencing right now. Due to an alarming amount of uninsured Americans, it is for certain many people in our country would be much less likely to go to a doctor or emergency room in the event of them thinking that they might be infected with the virus. Going to a medical practitioner or emergency room is already astronomically expensive for those who do not have insurance, so one cannot even imagine the cost of going to the hospital for the treatment of a deadly infectious disease without insurance. Already there have been reports of uninsured Americans receiving staggering bills for their treatment of the coronavirus, and studies show that going to the hospital uninsured with coronavirus will put Americans in serious medical debt. 

“Those who are hospitalized with coronavirus can expect to pay anywhere from $42,486 to $74,310 if they are uninsured or if they receive care that’s deemed out-of-network by their insurance company, according to recent analysis by independent nonprofit FAIR Health. For those with insurance who are using in-network providers, out-of-pocket costs will be a portion of $21,936 to $38,755, depending on the cost-sharing provisions of their health plan.”

In this sense, the very wellbeing of humans is being held firmly in the grasp of biopolitics. It is up to our both our political leaders as well as the nation’s top scientists and doctors to not only find a way to combat the virus, but also find a way to make sure every infected American is cared for without sending them into plummeting medical debt.